


Sick Kiss

by IrreWilderer



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst?, F/M, First Kiss, crazy redcliffe future, so implications of character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2015-10-22
Packaged: 2018-04-27 12:44:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5049097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrreWilderer/pseuds/IrreWilderer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sentiment embodied and fury animated: such was their first kiss, and it wasn't even real. In the false future at Redcliffe, Solas and Lavellan share a moment before that moment becomes Lavellan's private memory.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sick Kiss

"But what if it doesn't work, Dorian?!"  
  
Redcliffe Castle had caught them in a prison of their own absence and promised them a funeral pyre. The heat of the red lyrium burned the air, just as it boiled the blood in the Herald's veins to a fever and had broken the bodies of her friends.  
  
"What, the amulet?" Dorian queried lightly. His back was turned on the rest of the room as he prodded Alexius's pendant with frantic theories and desperate hope. "I die, you die, but at least we get out of this insufferable heat. Can't be good for the skin."  
  
The Herald of Andraste was watching her colleagues make their way to sacrifice. Decided in silent understanding, it had been the only agreement ever amicably settled between the apostate and Red Jenny rogue. That it took the end of the world for them to get along was laughable, hilarious, and in fact not very funny at all.  
  
Their walk to promised death broke the Herald's heart. Even if time might be fixed, there would have been a world, no less likely than any other, where they had died. A world where Sera had laid down her life for Ma'ven after suffering so terribly, the girl's youthful enthusiasm trampled to a child's helpless fear. A world where Solas was gone; just gone. Just gone, and just a body.  
  
"Wait!"  
  
She moved from the elevated throne, her physical memory counting every step while her mind thought only one thing: that they had been deprived of time. It was time which might not be mended and that they might not get back. A second of distraction compared to a year lost was nothing, and it deserved attention and the bitter-sweet truth.  
  
Leliana called after her. "We can't wait!" But the words reached nothing. They echoed off the castle walls, and floated to the ceiling like fleeing sparrows.  
  
The Herald was breathing heavily when she approached Solas. She could smell the hateful months clinging to his clothing. There was the sweat from pacing as his resolve decayed, and the salt of angry tears when only guilt was left to him. Stagnation and bondage soured something about him, but it was still Solas. Though his hope was worn to a waif of feeling, he looked at her no differently. She had yet to fail him. Her friend was still proud of her. And she was proud of him.  
  
"Ir abelas," Ma'ven whispered before pressing her lips to his.  
  
And she was happy: happy while her heart swooned like a courted maid's and sang like this was only the first kiss of many. Her palms held his face, thumbs stroking across his cheeks kindly. It hadn't been her intention to be so joyed while her top lip nested between his, but there it was; a spark of triumph against the endless dark. _Solas_ , who had redefined what it meant to be elven, and had supported her instincts and rewarded her wonder, and who she finally had a chance to show affection. How cruel that, at last, she'd found the time when time was utterly spent. Solas tasted sharp and caustic from the rancid of red lyrium, and though she had no delusions of sweetness, Ma'ven savored him like expensive spirits. The kiss ended with a gasping remembrance of reality, this wrong reality, and Ma'ven's jaw quivered.  
  
"Ir abelas, Solas," she repeated, trying to find the greyed evening of his gaze and finding only raw red. "So, so sorry."  
  
Solas crushed her against his chest.  
  
The female's hands splayed out and heard the thunder within his breast, meanwhile Solas's arms pulled around her harder and harder. His tongue begged charity, and received it in abandoned circling while his lips worked over hers in fierce repetition of feeling. His fingers sought sanctuary as they dug into her skin, and where Ma'ven's head tilted to the right, his went to the left, so that either might find deeper peace in the furious kiss.  The world roared on around them, and it was too real to be simply dismissed with a bit of magic. This moment could never be less than a memory.  
  
Dorian called out to them. "While I hate to stand in the way of romance, I do rather like standing in the way of the world ending."  
  
Solas pulled back, nose tip pressing against hers. Something of life had returned to his face, though his words still echoed with red lyrium sickness. "Right this world, Herald."  
  
"But I rather like this one now," Ma'ven said with a small, sad smile.  
  
His first chuckle in a year was a blessing. "Go."  
  
Ma'ven sighed, wrenched her eyes shut, and tore away from him. "In another world, hopefully," she longed for loudly while turning her back on him.  
  
"In another world," Solas agreed.  
  
The girl returned to Dorian's side, and by that time Solas and Sera were gone.


End file.
